Burning Down The Spouse is a contemporary romance with likable characters, unlikable characters, and lots of laughs.

I really liked the concept for this book. A trophy wife goes crazy on her husband’s national cooking show when she finds out he has been cheating on her.  Her life goes down the tubes and she has to learn to be on her own with the help of a few new friends. The zany things she gets herself into and out of as she discovers herself could be both heartwarming and funny.

However, I had one major problem with this book. All of the characters sounded the same and they all sounded like the author herself. I think this is one of the problems of following authors on twitter and Facebook. When you follow them you learn their particular way of talking and if it is the same as their characters it is hard to get past. There were several instances of “eyeballs bleeding” being used as a phrase in the book and it is a particular phrase that the author uses a lot.

This was something I just couldn’t get past. Frankie, Nikos, Jasmine, and Simon all sounded like the same character. There were a couple of times that I had to go back and re-read a section to remember who was talking.

The story itself is funny and heartwarming. I loved the way Frankie overcomes her divorce from Mitch and how realistic the character is when dealing with the initial fall-out. Her depression and decline seemed very realistic to me and I felt for the character. Nikos is sexy as hell and I loved how he was willing to help Frankie out even though she did come across as a little nutty after her television blow-up.

I gave a rating of 5 because I liked the story, but just couldn’t get past the “voice” thing. Every character should sound unique and they just don’t in Burning Down The Spouse.

~ Carrie